--- On September 17, 1787, as Benjamin Franklin was leaving the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention, at Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, a woman called out to him, saying, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”“A republic,” Franklin said, “if you can keep it.”

--- LFC, on Gorsuch ruling: "Awesome. A Christianist who swore an oath to uphold the laws of the nation and bore false witness when he did it"

One of the big argumets for Voter ID laws is to keep "illegal aliens" from voting.

Now... I'm no expert but... If you're in this country illegaly, and are trying to keep a VERY low profile why would you risk exposure and arrest by voting illegaly ?

In other words: just because they don't speak English doesn't mean they're stupid.

Now for the other argument: people moving from one state to another and voting twice. Seems North Carolina did a SSAN comparison and found 25K matching SSAN numbers in other states' voting rolls. I'm not sure if NC is implying there are 25K illegal voters in their state. Frankly to me its a paperwork exercise. Their new citizens (mostly Democrats) haven't disenrolled from their old state.

I will make one argument for voting in another district: I have a house in Maine, I pay property taxes there. I should be allowed to vote in property and school tax matters. (I'll vote for representatives in my home state thank you)

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Rev Martin Luther King Jr.

Obamacare took my guns away and put me in a FEMA reeducation camp.

Anonymous

If you've got public schools paid for by taxpayers, you're in a socialist nation. If you have public roads paid for by taxpayers, socialist nation. If you've got public defense (police, fire, military, coast guard) paid for by tax dollars, socialist nation. If you're in a nation that has nationalized or localized delivery of services that are not paid for by users alone, you're in a socialist nation- the only question is how socialist. As I see it, we have the military pay to protecting the shipping lanes for our fuel needs which makes up very socialist. In a capitalist nation, the people supplying the oil would pay for their own defense force.

this argument about illegals is so beyond stupid. People who don't even report crimes for fear of deportation,will risk all their livelihoods to vote. I knwo few illegals, and they do all kinds of things, but voting (or even thinking about it!) is not on the list.

More interesting question is how many Florida snowbirds votes here and also mails absentee balots up north? this thing came up few times, but I am not sure if there is any merit to it.

As people have pointed out elsewhere, recruiting masses if fraudulent voters would be a really stupid way to try to steal elections compared to fraud among the officials overseeing the vote. Wonder why these Red state guys hot after voter fraud never talk about THAT as an issue? Hmmm.

Basically this feeds the fear if the older white GOP base that brown people are illegally stealing control of the country. That it empowers GOP states to do things to surpresses minority votes AND push back against immigration reform are bonus points. Or maybe the last two are the main points and feeding the Beast of the base is a bonus. Who knows?

In other words: just because they don't speak English doesn't mean they're stupid.

I can't believe you said that. Why do you hate America's exceptionalism?

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

Seems North Carolina did a SSAN comparison and found 25K matching SSAN numbers in other states' voting rolls.

When was the last time you tried to get yourself OFF of the voter rolls? My experiences have basically been that it ranges from "royal pain in the ass" to "impossible." And by "impossible," I mean that there's no mechanism short of a court order to make it happen. "Royal pain in the ass" can involve a trip to the County recorder's office and spending a morning waiting in several queues while successive people try to find out how to do it, because it almost never happens.

And, oddly enough, that's a good thing. Because if all it took was a phone call, you can bet your sweet bippy that a whole bunch of people in competitive districts would arrive at the polls on Election Day to discover that they had been removed from the rolls.

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

When was the last time you tried to get yourself OFF of the voter rolls? My experiences have basically been that it ranges from "royal pain in the ass" to "impossible." And by "impossible," I mean that there's no mechanism short of a court order to make it happen. "Royal pain in the ass" can involve a trip to the County recorder's office and spending a morning waiting in several queues while successive people try to find out how to do it, because it almost never happens.

And, oddly enough, that's a good thing. Because if all it took was a phone call, you can bet your sweet bippy that a whole bunch of people in competitive districts would arrive at the polls on Election Day to discover that they had been removed from the rolls.

Yes, and in a country that struggles to get what, above 40% elugable voters to actually bother voting, significant numbers are going to make the effort to vote in two different states. If they do, they are more likely to be retirees or other people well enough off to have free time and willing to deal with government to get that absentee ballot from the other state (negating Voter ID rules...). Probably a demographic that skews GOP, not Democratic.

This absentee ballot issue is an interesting take. Wouldn't the original article have uncovered that though?

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened."-- Winston Churchill"Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make you commit injustices" Voltaire

This absentee ballot issue is an interesting take. Wouldn't the original article have uncovered that though?

I don't know, I assume that there isn't a lot of cross-state checking. I would think that the way you'd get removed from your old state voter rolls would be by registering in a new state. Ideally the registra would collect your old address and ask your former district to remove you, but I don't know that is how it works. Asking to be removed from the voting list is pretty far down my to-do when I relocate.

Clearly the idea that lots of people commute from one state polling place to a place in a different state to vote twice is a fantasy.

these people usually own two houses, one up norht, on down here, so they do have two addresses. Apparently they are eligible for voting in both, and I am not sure if there is mechanism to check if they do that. I know this question pops up often here when talking about voters'r fraud. Somehow we have more democrats in the state, but it;s the Republicans who have been in charge for long long time. Kind of insteresting...

I would think that the way you'd get removed from your old state voter rolls would be by registering in a new state. Ideally the registra would collect your old address and ask your former district to remove you, but I don't know that is how it works.

Not that I can tell. I mean, after all there's some administrative cost to doing that. As it is, when you get a driver's licence in a new State [1] they cancel the one in the old State, so don't expect even more services at Government expense.

[1] When you move in-State, they don't cancel your licence but they do require you to keep the address current. Another expensive service to the takers that move around.

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

Could be an argument to nationalize the electorial process. Do away with gerrymandering and consolidate voter databases.

Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Need more than that. Still a lot of low wage workers have to work on Sunday, too.

Pray for Trump: Psalm 109:8

"Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers arc in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

— Carl Sagan
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
1995

“As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

— H.L. Mencken
On Politics: A Carnival of Buncombe

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.”

Good GOD. We have national holidays, right? Why not Voting Day? That one doesn't even have to be every year.

Every woman needs a blowtorch.
---Julia Child

--- On September 17, 1787, as Benjamin Franklin was leaving the deliberations of the Constitutional Convention, at Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, a woman called out to him, saying, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”“A republic,” Franklin said, “if you can keep it.”

--- LFC, on Gorsuch ruling: "Awesome. A Christianist who swore an oath to uphold the laws of the nation and bore false witness when he did it"

Constitution. However, early voting and vote by mail get the same effect, and that's within the power of Congress to mandate for all Federal elections.

Oh, wait ...

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO

The way a lot of catastrophes happen is that X doesn't occur because there are safeguards in place, therefore people assume X isn't a worry and they remove the safeguards. Then X happens.
— Nate Silver
"Robots aren't the problem. Capitalism is." -- Last words of Stephen Hawking.
These days, "libertarian" is just a euphemism for a Nazi who's afraid to commit.
"If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention." -- Heather Heyer
"I'd rather have my child, but by golly, if I gotta give her up, we're gonna make it count." -- Her mother
"Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events." -- some RINO